


Tallies

by sinelanguage



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 22:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7951837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinelanguage/pseuds/sinelanguage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance keeps a tally at the one thing he can beat Keith in- saving Keith’s butt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tallies

**Author's Note:**

> Two sections are edited/incorporated from old drabble responses. If you follow me on tumblr, you may recognize some bits. 
> 
> Thanks to Frey for the idea. Meant to write this as practice, before I finished my damn frustrating WIP, but got carried away, so here we are.

The first time Lance saves Keith, neither of them really expect it. In fact, saving may be an overestimation of the situation, but Lance needs some kind of tally to win, and if it’s saving Keith’s butt, well, so be it. He’s going to count, and he’s going to win. It’s not like Keith does his own butt any favors.

He’d consider covering for Keith, if it meant, however technically, beating Keith at something. Technically, he’s done it, otherwise, but he ignores that, since it could be used against him, as evidence of a failed rivalry or something along those lines.

Still- the first time shouldn’t really count, but Lance, of course, counts it anyway.

Firefight explodes around the two of them, as they hunker behind a bunker on the latest alien planet. It’s not a good bunker, and Lance faults everyone but himself for that.

“Calm down and do something!” Keith yells, sword held between his hands gripped around his bayard. Keith brought a knife to a gunfight, and Lance opens his mouth to comment on that, because that’s hilarious, but Keith cuts him off. “We’re running out of options here!”

They were- technically it was Keith’s fault, too, for charging into this, but Lance hadn’t stopped him. He’d just shrugged and went along with it, when he really should have at least tried to temper Keith’s temper.

“You do something!” Lance says, as he peers over the bunker. Something shoots, next to his ear, and valuing his sadly round ears, he crouches down again. He points wildly at the other side of the bunker. “This is your fault!”

“That’s _helpful_ ,” Keith hisses. He’s paused between a crouch and a bolt, his eyes darting at the enemies in front of them.

Lance sets a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and with Keith’s bewildered look, he lifts it up and claps it down again. It makes the motion less nice, and more harsh, he thinks. He doesn’t know what Keith thinks, other than bewilderment.

“What was _that-"_

“Calm down,” Lance says, actually suitably calm. Keith still grips his sword between his hands, grip not faulting, and not trusting Lance.

Rolling his eyes, Lance gives Keith a hard look he hopes translates into “this is the best plan I have so be a calm, rational, human being, for once in your sad, pitiful, and overly aggressive life,” he aims the tip of his bayard over their bunker.

He can’t hit them all- he doesn’t have enough shots. But there’s a chance to confuse them, and if there’s anything Lance knows, it’s confusion means chaos. Taking aim at what he’s assuming is a fire alarm system, he sticks his tongue out in concentration, and fires.

It takes two shots, to break the system, but he does, and suddenly, water drenches them.

Keith doesn’t look impressed- he’s still holding his sword, tight as before, and he doesn’t move. He doesn’t trust Lance, or maybe he just hasn’t processed what’s going on. Either option sits under Lance’s skin.

“Let’s get out of here!” Lance says, and pulls a hand off Keith’s sword and into his own to pull him forward. He should’ve grabbed him by the arm, but- but he needed Keith to calm down, and loosening the grip on his bayard should accomplish that.

Water sprays over them, as Lance tugs Keith forward by the hand and into the escape vents. They’re both panting, when they get out, Lance hard and heavy, Keith barely a huff.

Keith pulls his hand out of Lance’s, and looks at Keith quizzically. Lance pretends he was never holding Keith’s hand in the first place.  

“ _That_ was your plan?” Keith says. His bayard’s away, though, and that’s more of an accomplishment than Lance wants to recognize.

Without having a proper response, Lance gives Keith a thumbs up, and a very aggressive frown.

* * *

And so it begins- Lance, internally keeping tally, at the one thing he could seem to beat Keith at: saving Keith himself.

* * *

The mugginess of the rainforest sits under Lance’s armor, sweat prickling _everywhere_ and surely staining his undershirt, his suit, his smell. Sweat drips from his brow to his chin, and then it falls to his armor and then meets its fate with the ground. The ground’s wet, and bitterly, Lance wonders if it’s all his own sweat.

Of course it’s not. That would be ridiculous. It’s just the humidity that sinks him and Keith down, down and into the ground, bad moods, and exhaustion.

Maybe, though, it’s all a combination of his and Keith’s sweat. Because besides Keith living in a desert for who knows how long, he sweats as much as Lance, maybe more. It’s definitely a combination of his and Lance’s sweat that stains the ground, and Lance wonders how much water humans can lose.

If he’s being honest, and not blaming everything on Keith, including the ground, it’s not all Keith and Lance’s sweat. He knows that, for a fact- occasionally, from up in the canopy of the rainforest, water will flush out like a momentary storm. The leaves hoard water, and release it occasionally to the ground, and Lance doesn’t care enough to wonder why. He would, if he hadn’t stepped into the forest only for one to drench him immediately.

Rainforests _stink._ Literally and figuratively. There’s nothing but green trees and underbrush ahead of him, and while the twisting branches and leaves above him gives him and Keith shade, it doesn’t promise cool. Instead, they’re just trapped.

Keith pants, hand resting against a tree. Lance only stopped when Keith did, and instead of stopping with dignity, he starfishes himself in the coolest spot he can find. It’s still warm, of course, but he can lie to himself.

“So, Keith,” Lance starts. Keith doesn’t even bother to look at him. He’s wiping off the sweat from his forehead, and looking at it like it’s a challenge. “We might be lost.”

Keith still seems focused on his own hand, as if it could bring him answers. He clenches it, unclenches it, then repeats the process.

His lack of response annoys Lance, so Lance continues valiantly. “I’m not saying this is your fault, but it totally is.”

Again- no response. Lance leans up, propped up by his elbows. Keith- Keith still seems to be investigating his own hands, like the secrets of the universe lies in them. He’s pressed against the tree, his whole back, but his knees still shake, but he focuses intently on his hands. Maybe he can palm read. Then again, he’s wearing gloves. Maybe not.

“Uh, Keith, buddy?” Lance says. Then, he drops the buddy in mockery, and he repeats it softer. “Buddy- Keith. Are you even listening?”

Keith takes off his glove, and tosses it at Lance’s face. It takes a momentous amount of effort, by the sounds of it, and it takes even more effort for Lance to snuff out a noise of his own shock and protest.

“What was _that_ for, I’m just trying to help-”

“I’m not sweating,” Keith says. His legs still shake, and he moves his ungloved hand in emphasis. “That’s- that’s all old sweat. It’s all old.”

“You can tell?” asks Lance. He sniffs the glove himself, then snorts and pulls it as far away from his face as he can manage. “Oh, come on! This is still sweaty,” Lance says. He lobs the offending glove back at Keith, and it flops, defeated, on the side of Keith’s cheek.

Keith doesn’t even move.

“Keith?” Lance asks, a couple beats after the glove’s sad, soft landing on the ground. Lance pulls himself up from the glorious, glorious cold spot of ground.

He’s on one knee, about to be fully standing, when he looks at Keith, and something’s _wrong._ Keith’s eyes hold nothing in them, blank and unfocused, darting from side to side when they do come into focus. The shaking of the legs should’ve given him away, and not sweating, and- well, the quietness of their trek, and a lot of things

Before Lance can feel bad, Keith’s legs give from under him, or indignant at himself for feeling bad, Keith’s legs crumble like cards and he falls full against the tree.

“Keith!” Lance yells, stumbling as he stands. It doesn’t take long, to reach the tree, and he presses a hand to Keith’s forehead. As if that would help. He should’ve payed more attention in medical training, but he’d never thought he’d really need it.

“Okay, okay, okay,” mutters Lance. He doesn’t know who he’s saying it to. “You’re going to be perfectly fine,” he says to an unconscious Keith. Keith breathes heavy and thick on Lance’s skin. It sets the tiny hair on Lance’s arms on edge.

He needs water- it’s the first thought to Lance’s mind, that Keith needs water, and shelter, and a lot of things. Maybe he should cool him down, but both of them have already stripped to lighter armor before the initial trek into the forest. So, water it is.

“I can’t believe the one time I would admit to needing your help you’ve fainted,” says Lance. It’s kind of a contradiction- he’d only ask for Keith’s help if Keith was in danger- but he needs to say something to pretend Keith hasn’t outright fainted in front of him. Worry chews on his insides, and he wants to ignore that.

He doesn’t want to worry, over Keith, he doesn’t want to worry at all.

The only option he has is water, and- and there’s none here. There’s none here, except for the top of the canopy, and there’s no way he could get Keith there.

He stares at Keith, then at the top of the forest. No light shines through, and something hoots in the top of the trees.

“Stay here,” Lance says. Keith outputs a tiny huff of breath, and Lance pretends it’s a response.

Handholds come easy- a rare, lucky break. The bark pulls under his fingers, so Lance doesn’t stay on one hand-hold for long. He climbs the tree like a frantic squirrel, up and up without regard for the crumpling bark under his fingers or the increasing distance from the ground.

He focuses, instead, on water- and finding water for Keith. It’s a desperation in the pit of his chest he’d never thought he’d feel so strongly for Keith, but it propels him from the ground and into the horribly tall canopy above, so who is he to deny it.

The first few leaves in the canopy hold nothing for him, nor do the next ones, or the next ones. He looks around, desperately, for an answer, before he notices how wrong his assumptions were.

He thought water fell off the leaves like- like, water off a breaking rain gutter, held in before it pops loose and spills over. Instead, he watches as one of the local birdish things pecks at the leaves until they burst, water pouring down to the ground after.

The water’s in the leaves, like an overripe cactus. It’s a rainforest, and there should be something wrong with that, but alien planets run by so many paradoxical rules Lance can only accept what his eyes tell him. And, now, his eyes tell him that leaves equal water.

Muttering congratulations to himself, Lance tears off a bundle of leaves and shoves them under his armpit, and leers and the ground below. He hadn’t thought about his descent, when he squirreled it up here, but he’s thinking about it now.

“All this for Keith,” Lance says to the ground. The ground does not respond. “All this for- he probably won’t even thank me, what a jerk.”

At least it’ll count to his tally. Two-to-zero. A good, solid count. Something to write home about, if he could.

Shuffling down the tree, at an inconsistent pace, he feels more of a koala than a squirrel. He creeps down, inch by inch by sudden foot by inch, until his feet reach the glorious, glorious ground.

Keith looks as well as he did, maybe worse. His lips part, helpful, but they’re chapped and gross. His eyes give a desperate flutter, but don’t open.

Lance grips the back of Keith’s neck, then breaks the stem of one of the leaves. He peers at the innards of the flower. Before he pours it into Keith’s mouth, he pauses, then tries it himself.

It’s water, alright- and he can’t taste anything awful. Probably not a sure-sign, but sure-signs being an improbability in the undergrowth of a comms-cutting forest, he’ll take it.

He leans back Keith’s neck, then slowly, drips the water into his mouth. It takes a while, to cajole Keith into swallowing, but he does, and Lance calms down. He’s still not awake, leaning against the tree, but his breathing calms and he looks- well, Lance feels less guilty, now.

Keith only wakes up, halfway as Lance drags him back to their lions. Lance only notices by the muttering, and the only coherent content Lance understands is a muttered, “ _Y_ _ou’re_ still sweating.”

Not even a thank you. Just as he thought. Lance resists the urge to drop him, right there, and continues his trek.

* * *

He doesn’t know why he does it. It doesn’t even, technically, count toward the tally.

To be fair- that describes a lot of Lance’s decisions. So many mistakes in his life could be measured up to making a decision without really understand what processes in his brain pushed the idea forward. A lot of _good_ could be derived from the same, arbitrary thought process, but if he’s being honest with himself, he knows the good doesn’t outweigh the bad.

Still, this hasn’t been his best idea, covering for Keith, but it’s an idea he followed through with, and has to live with the consequences of.

They’d both been detained on their ambassador mission, for breaking some arbitrary rule on who knows what, Lance had no clue. This star system ran on so many clogged together rules he thought maybe even the people who detained them didn’t know what rule they broke. They just wanted them detained, no matter what the rule.

The two of them had been dragged to a detention center, cuffs over hands, and scolded harshly for breaking what sounded like a sidewalk policy.

Keith had the same, fiery look he always did, but desperation in the face of authority overtook it. Something set him off, but before he could spew anything to set off the planetary police, Lance had yammered something he hoped would fully convict him of his sidewalk crimes.

Somehow- it worked. It worked, and Lance was very glad, as the guards walked away a calm but conflicted Keith, but the happiness soon soured as they dragged him into a cell.

At least they took the cuffs off. There was nothing to do in the cell, but he’d have less to do with cuffs.

Chucking the only object in the cell he has, a tiny rock shaped like- shaped like a rock, he watches as it hits the wall next to him and bounces back. It doesn’t even bounces very well, just hitting the ground and staying there.

It’s what a rock does. Rocks, Lance thinks, are very, very boring.

There’s no one there. Lance would be able to deal with a guard to pester, but there’s no one _there,_ and there hasn’t been, not for hours. His stomach growls, and his throat feels dry, but he tries to hide it. If the planet knew about him breaking sidewalk rules, maybe they had rules on, what, improper display of bad dietary habits.

The stronger reasoning behind not showing weakness was pride, but pride prevented him from outright admitting that. So paranoia it was.

Lance tosses the rock again, and it patters on the floor. It hits the wall in a soft thump each time, one thump, two thumps, three thumps, and then, a _bang._

Jumped back into the wall of the cell, Lance eyes the rock in suspicion and disdain. Somehow, it made that noise, however improbable, as he’d become very familiar with the rock noise-

“Lance?!” someone yells, from outside the cell.

Or, the bang was Keith.

“Keith!” Lance yells, rock abandoned on the floor. “I have never been happier to hear your voice.”

Keith huffs- he sounds pleased. Happy, if Lance was pushing it. He doesn’t dwell on that.

“Listen, dude, can you- uh- open the doors? I don’t know where they _are,_ I’ve been here for _ages,_ and let me tell you, I’m shy, and can’t go to the bathroom in front of other people, even like, people that might be there-”

“- _I don’t care,_ ” Keith cuts him off harshly. “I don’t know where the door is.”

It turns out- there was no door, just a flap at the top of the cell, Keith had to pull Lance out of. No matter how nimble-or knobby- Lance’s limbs were, it took a decent amount of tugging to pull Lance out of the tall cell, and through the hatch to the ceiling above them.

Lance lays on the ground, panting, as if he did most the work.

“Can I get a thank you?” Lance says.

Keith huffs, and it’s not happy. Lance knows, for sure, the earlier happy huff was probably an illusion, by the hunger in the pit of his stomach. He’s delirious, he’s imagining things, he’s imagining how he’s kind of disappointed.

“I just saved you,” Keith says.

“No, no- this is just, covering your own skin, from me saving you,” Lance says. Keith furrows his gaze, as if he could pinpoint contradictions in Lance’s statement with a glare. “You know, I covered for you. You weren’t looking peachy, with the space police.”

Keith sits up, panting no longer, as Lance still lays splay on the ground. “Oh,” he says. “I guess.”

“I guess!” Lance protests, “I guess, what a thank you, for your _savior-_ ”

Something blares, and Keith covers Lance’s mouth with the meat of his palm.

“Well, my _savior_ is about to be found, if you don’t be quiet,” Keith mutters, as if he hadn’t been equally as loud.

“Fine,” Lance mouths.

He’s still counting this as him saving Keith.

* * *

It’s the worst count he has on the list. Unlucky number four, preventing him from having a guilt-free tally of clear wins. It’s still a clear win- clearer than any of the others- but it’s also an embarrassing one.

Whatever feelings he'd been trying to ignore from the ice incident, have come back, full force, like a firefight.

If anyone asks Lance- it’s a mission. He wouldn’t voluntarily suggest this. Not if his life wasn’t on the line- which it was. He’d suggest this if it was anyone but Keith, without needing the life caveat. But here he is, and here Keith is, and here they are. In this unfortunate situation.

“We have to think of something,” Lance says. Both of them are stuck, in a tiny coat closet, with Lance’s elbow meeting Keith’s ribs and Keith’s knee meeting the wall behind Lance. It isn’t comfortable. It could be- he supposes it could be, with anyone other than Keith- but that’s not the card he was drawn.

Keith continues tinkering at the shield-barrier they were supposed to be working on. There are four of them- so each paladin got one, except Keith and him, who got to deal with one together. Lance is stuck between being offended at not being competent enough to take on this challenge himself, and delighted that Keith, also, was not competent enough to take on this challenge himself.

It’s a serious conflict. It’s a serious moment. He knows, if anyone at the fancy party outside opened the door, they would be caught red-handed. They need to disable this shield, now, but any second someone could walk in on them and see Keith tinkering on their shield-whatever and ruin the mission.

“You think of something,” Keith says. It had the bite of a retort, but not the content, as he was quite busy with something else. Lance wouldn’t let this slide.

Elbowing Keith hard in the ribs, he says, “What? Is the- the shield thing really confusing you that much?”

“No- it’s-” Keith, stumped, to Lance’s delight, glares at Lance. His face looks red, and his expression pinched. “Can you scoot over?”  
  
“There’s nowhere to _scoot_.”

Keith shoves him, and managed to find the room for Lance to scoot. He had that sort of determination- the kind that made the impossible happen. It impresses Lance, then instead of passing, it sticks around like a jealous plague. Lance huffs, loudly, and his breath reflects off Keith’s neck and hit him back in the face.

“I mean- if they catch us, we’re not exactly being subtle, here,” Lance says. “You have a wrench. It’s in your hand. We’re in the only closet with the shields.”

Keith’s elbow knocks Lance in the face. He bites the corner of his cheek- Lance could see the movement, he’s so close- and continues to desperately hack away at the shield. “Your plan- you’re not doing anything right now, so figure it out.”

“Well, we could sit here, like sitting ducks,” Lance says. “Like ducks sitting.” He had the habit of saying the first thing on his mind- even if his mind betrayed him, with these stray thoughts betraying his core values of Not Liking Keith. “…or we could make out.”

The wrench in Keith’s hand hits Lance’s shoulder with a clank, bruising it and causing Lance to elbow Keith unintentionally. His shoulder ache, and he tries to look rightfully offended at this, but Keith looks so pitifully flustered that he couldn’t.

Keith grabs the wrench from off of Lance, and continues to pry away at the shield.

“What, you never make out with someone before-” Lance states, as if he had, but he couldn’t finish the taunt, because the door creaks open.

Then, suddenly, the wrench was hidden behind the nape of Lance’s neck, and the palm of Keith’s hand. Keith’s face is close, so close, that Lance can see the sweat dripping down his forehead and the stains of pimple scars across Keith’s cheek.

“Um,” Lance says, and Keith kisses him quiet.

Their teeth clank, the wrench digs into the back of Lance’s neck, and Keith feels warmer than anything Lance had felt in his life. He closes his eyes, just as the door closed again, and Keith pulls away.

“That- that- worked,” Keith says. His hand shook, and Lance could feel it. It shook enough, his arm shook with it.

“Uh-huh,” Lance says, blinking wildly. Keith looks red. Keith looks red, and Lance smirks in the dark. “Yeah, yeah, that worked- are you blushing?”

“I’m working on this shield-thing,” said Keith. “You just- you be quiet.”

It’s a piss-poor response. It makes Lance smile, and lean back into the wall.

“I can’t believe it,” Lance says. “You’re blushing. I kissed you and you’re _blushing."_

He’s delighted- this is the best development that could be had from kissing Keith. He gets a technical count on the saving Keith list- it was _his_ idea- and Keith looks embarrassed. He’s never seen Keith this embarrassed. He smiles wide, and doesn’t investigate how much he enjoys this. Or the fact he hadn't minded the initial kiss in the first place. 

Keith makes a pained noise, low and from the back of his throat. “I’m the one who kissed _you._ ”

“My idea! It was my idea,’ Lance says. “I’m adding it to the count, of me saving your butt.”

Keith no longer looks red. He gives Lance a pursed look, eyebrows bushy and pinched on his forehead. “You keep count?”

“I’m beating you,” Lance says. “You’re not very good at, uh, saving yourself.”

The wrench hits the back of Lance’s neck, and Lance yelps, falling forward and crowding the closet again.

“Shove _off,_ ” Keith mutters. He doesn’t push Lance very far. “Wouldn’t a better competition be me saving you, you saving me?”

That would make sense.

“No, it wouldn’t!” Lance protests. “Of course it wouldn’t.”

The hum behind him ceases, and the shield’s down. Keith leans back, wrench still in his hand, and low light of the closet hiding his expression.

“You don’t make any _sense,_ ” Keith says.

Lance shrugs. It’s four-to-nought, by Lance Logic. It’s four-to-nought, and that’s the best winning streak Lance has ever had in his life.

* * *

Ice spikes from the planet’s surface, jagged edges reaching toward the sky. Sunset cast them in a peachy hue, their cold surfaces basking in an ironic warm glow.

It’s a stunning sight, pretty, even, but Lance scans over it quick. It isn’t why he’s here. Sight-seeing can wait, for when he’s collected Keith.

Hours ago, Keith’s comms had crashed into static, without much to go off of other than a previous location and a cracking blast of a sound.

Of course Keith had to go off and find trouble- it wasn’t even Keith’s fault this time, he was supposed to be investigating this ice-encased planet, and it wasn’t even supposed to be hard. But it was- for whatever unknown reason- and Lance is here to play clean-up.

At first, Lance thought it was just another tally to count, but it became less and less of a game, as Keith wouldn't respond, and they could only find a blip of a radar reading on the Red Lion.

The cold ground beneath him looks all the same, forests of pointed ice, until he spots a clearing. Icicles break, flattened and wrinkled, leading to a sight that makes Lance’s stomach sink.

The Red Lion lays beached, icicles prodding her hull. They don’t look pretty, anymore, stabbing through metal and staying there. He doesn’t even think they’re really ice, just cold enough and piercing enough to play the part.

He flies Blue as close as he can, before landing. From this angle, he can see a slab of ice-rock-whatever stabbing through the cockpit of Keith’s lion. The Blue Lion hasn’t even fully opened her jaw, before he’s sprinting out.

The planet’s surface is frigid under his feat. He slides against the surface, frictionless in the cold. It’s cold for him- it’s cold for him and he has his suit and he just got here. He tries not to imagine what it must be like to be here for hours.

The Red Lion’s unresponsive, but it doesn’t matter, her maw hangs open and Lance can climb in as easily as he climbed out of his own Lion. The edges of the cockpit frost in the cold, blue dust lingering over like a warning.

“Keith?” Lance says, hi-pitched, before he can see the full cockpit. When he does, he repeats, louder, “Keith!”

The ice- it’s not ice, not really, ice can do damage but nothing like this- punctures through the thick of the Red Lion, bits and pieces scattering the ground. A slab hits the side of the pilot’s seat, and Lance crunches over the lingering pieces on the ground to get to the front.

He breathes out, a huff of warm air into his visor, when he finds Keith still in the seat. The icicle hasn’t hit him, but just barely. It’s not the kind of just-barely that Lance makes, a lucky just-barely, it’s a dodged with purpose just-barely.

“Lance,” says Keith, and it’s quieter than Lance has ever heard him. It's still _relieved,_ and happy, and Lance wants to laugh, then cry, but instead, he kneels in front of Keith and probes his injuries.

He doesn’t have any major ones- not what Lance was anticipating. His armor cracks along the side, but it doesn’t bleed. It would be a relief, if it wasn’t coated in a thin layer of ice-dust.

“Keith, buddy,” Lance says, as he pries Keith from the cockpit. There's no sarcasm in his wording, only a desperate attempt at comfort. Keith shivers against him, pliant to Lance but stiff in the limbs. “Come on, you have to move. Can’t have you freeze to death.”

“-I have frostbite,” Keith says, as if that isn’t clear. “I _am_ freezing to death.”

“Uh-huh, yes, you have frostbite, that you do,” Lance says. He shakes Keith again, who protests with a weak noise and a weaker kick to Lance’s shins. “Come on, if you die from frostbite it’s- that’s pitiful. Can’t have my rival dying from frostbite. That makes me look bad.” He’s probably rambling, but it keeps Keith moving. “If you die on me, I’m going to kill you.”

“Mmm,” Keith says. He seems to be moving now, out of the Red Lion and toward the ice outside. It’s an improvement. Lance hauls him, one arm under Keith’s arm, bearing both their weight. “Not likely.”

“Come on, you’re half dead-” Lance says, “You can’t make that much of a fight.”

Keith laughs, “No, you’re just- just…”

“If you’re going to insult me- your savior- you’re going to be left on this ice, right here,” Lance says, as he continues sliding across the ice to the Blue Lion. Her maw opens, and Lance hauls Keith in.

“You’re kind of a sap,” says Keith. It’s the last thing he says, before passing out inside the Blue Lion, and he doesn’t even get to hear the indignant noise of protest Lance makes.

He only counts it as a saving-Keith’s-butt moment, belatedly, when Shiro thanks him on getting Keith out of there. He hadn’t even _realized_ this would count toward the bet after he saves Keith, with the worry in his gut eating at any other thought.

A bit reluctantly, he counts it as a rescue. It is- it’s the most rescue-like rescue he has, but it doesn’t feel like a game like the others, instead like he’s sinking into something he never wanted to sink into in the first place. Something the tally should be saving him from.

Lance doesn't want to feel anything but the thrill of victory. He'd even take the agony of defeat. This- worry, relief, everything- over Keith is something new entirely. He recognizes it, he knows he does, but he shoves the feeling away. This is  _Keith._ He's going to continue his tally in peace, without anything snubbing him along the way.

* * *

The trading port swarms with aliens, bartering and arguing over goods Lance couldn’t even comprehend. Fruits from other planets, bits and bobs of machinery so far ahead from Earth it made his mind whir in ideas, shiny weapons and shinier adornings. It’s a feast for the eyes, and Lance would stop and smell the roses, but he has a mission.

He sighs, deeply. He does have a mission.

Sitting in an alley, he follows the traders, keeping a close watch on them and a closer watch on his commlink. Coran had heard rumors, of something of value the Galra needed to trade for here- a weapon, he thought- and while he didn’t know what it was, he had many ideas, and Lance had to watch for all of them.

This stinks. He has no idea what he’s looking for, and something suspicious covered most activity at the trading post.

It turns out, the suspicious thing was behind him, all the while, sneaking up on him until he was distracted by well, everything else. Something suspicious hits him on the back of his neck, and his vision blurs, and he’s on the ground, a yell quiet in his throat.

He wakes up, indiscernible amount of time later, in another cell, without any rocks. He’s cuffed to the wall, and the cuffs grate at his skin. It takes him a while, to focus on everything, from the low light above him to the cold steel on the walls.

Nothing hurts, other than the back of his neck, and he should feel thankful for that, but he just feels trapped.

“Great,” he says to himself. He’s not sure when anyone will notice something’s wrong- he had to mute his comms, and he hadn’t the time to turn them back on while being attacked.

He doesn’t have the comms, anymore. He doesn’t have anything, only his most basic of clothes. They’d even stripped his boots, as if he could hide anything in those old things.

“This is wonderful,” says Lance. It continues to be wonderful, the cuffs chafing at his skin as he tries to move toward an escape he can’t see.

The light dims over his head, and crackles, and something bangs on the side of the cell.

Lance just hopes it’s a good bang- and it is. The cell doors open, and Lance prepares for an insult, but tension leaves as he sees it’s Keith.

Relief floods him, and a defense mechanism of pettiness floods him after that. Keith’s here- he’s five-to-one, now, and even though it’s at the cost of his own life, it’s also at the cost of his dignity. His pride. Everything he holds near and dear to his heart.

Which, he thinks, awfully and in a war with his own mind, probably includes Keith.

“Are you actually going to uncuff me this time?” Lance says. He thinks he's probably flushed, and he tries to cover it up with a bark without bite. “Instead of _leave me_ tied to a _tree._ ”

He’s still bitter last time, with Nyma, but that was certainly more his fault than this time, which was just slightly his fault. 

Keith uncuffs him, and Lance stretches his arms forward, then pulls himself up. His legs feel stiff and awful, everything feels stiff and awful, and Keith claps a hand to his shoulder before Lance can fall to the ground.

“Not even a thank you?” says Keith. It’s teasing- it has to be. Lance has been complaining about thank yous this whole _time,_ Keith doesn’t get to start. Nothing about this situation was really fair.

Lance hopes, hopes with all his heart, he hasn’t been reading this wrong, and plants a solid kiss, on the side of Keith’s face. It’s a solid miss, but sloppy and wet on Lance’s end.

As he pulls away, he tries to smirk, but it’s only a two star smirk. It’s more of a shy smile, and it shouldn’t be. “That enough of a thank you?” asks Lance.

Keith rolls his eyes, and grabs Lance’s hand. His face is flushed, for a moment, but Lance can’t settle in his victory for long. “You’re the worst,” says Keith, as he leads Lance out.

It’s five to one, now, and the odds will certainly fall in Keith’s favor eventually, but Lance doesn’t feel like he’s losing.

In fact, he thinks it's the start of a nice winning streak.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at sinelanguage, and twitter at sine_tron! Thanks for reading this nonsense.


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